(YNET) During visit to Kenya, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon signs cooperation agreement aimed at purifying waters of east African lake, improving lives of some 5 million people Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, who is visiting Kenya, signed a cooperation agreement with Kenya and Germany that aims to improve the lives of millions of Africans who reside around Lake Victoria.The goal of the project is to promote fish farming techniques and desalinate and purify the waters of the lake, which is one of the main sources of livelihood for some 5 million people living in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.According to the agreement, Israel will donate advanced technologies especially developed in the Jewish state, as well as knowledge and professional guidance.Deputy Minister Ayalon said that “projects of these kinds show the true and beautiful side of Israel, and strengthen Israel’s ties with the continent of Africa.“While Iran tries to get a foothold in Africa with weapons, bombs and terror, Israel brings Africa progress, as well as agricultural and economic humanitarian aid. This is just an example of the difference between the fanatic ayatollahs’ regime and the Israeli democracy,” he added.Israel’s Ambassador to Nairobi Gil Heskel said Israel intends to develop more projects, noting that it was received with “tremendous appreciation.”“We have since received many requests from other heads of African states to expand the project to their countries as well,” Heskel added.

(Reuters) The group behind the viral “Kony 2012” video that drew world attention to Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony tipped off Ugandan forces in 2009 to the whereabouts of a former child soldier wanted by the Kampala government, according to a classified U.S. cable published by Wikileaks. Invisible Children, which shot to prominence last month when its video on Kony and his brutal Lord’s Resistance Army drew more than 100 million hits on social media, told Ugandan officials that a man wanted by security forces was staying with the group in the northern Ugandan city of Gulu, the cable showed.

When it comes to Watusi and the Hutu I really don’t know enough to have an opinion, nor do I know if ratting out a rebel is a bad thing or a good thing… what I do know is this guy was masturbating in public and Reuters covered the story as if he were having a mental breakdown. If I masturbated in public would you call it that? Probably not.

VICTIMS of human sex trafficking have told how they were enslaved by witchcraft, torture and death threats in modern-day Scotland. The harrowing stories of ten women were compiled by campaigners investigating the world’s fastest growing organised crime. Nine came from Africa, one from South America.In one of the testimonies to a Glasgow charity, a 21-year-old told how she was branded and forced to take a “witchcraft oath” to prevent her escaping. She said: “I had to take the oath. I was given this mark on my hand. I was told that this mark, if you tell anyone what has transpired, you are going to die. “They gave me a razor blade to eat, they took my armpit hair, they removed my nails from my toes and my fingers. “They removed the hair on my body, they tied it up and put it in this shrine, then they tear my body and told me that if I tell anyone, ‘you will just die’. When I saw the shrine, it was so big, I was so scared.”The women tell their stories in research commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). The main centres for sex trafficking are Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, Paisley, Stirling and Falkirk but it also touches small towns and villages. So far Scotland has had just one successful prosecution – while there have been 150 in England and Wales. Human rights lawyer Baroness Helena Kennedy, who headed the investigation, said: “As a criminal lawyer I have heard and read many stories of women being beaten, abused and suffering psychological torment, so there is not much that shocks me. “However, the evidence that we took from women not only shocked me, as it would any woman, but resolved me to ensure their voices, their experiences, their insights, were heard.“These are stories of ordinary women – mothers, daughters and sisters – vulnerable due to poverty and discrimination, being deceived into Scotland and subjected to horrifying sexual violation.“These violations occur across Scotland, and not only in our cities; the women and girls are exploited indoors, in private “sex” flats, not in shadowy back streets. They may seem fine and in control when in fact they are mentally shackled and controlled by traffickers.“It is now up to us all to work together – across our families and communities, our villages, towns and cities, and in our politics – to identify and, together, rid Scotland of the modern slavery in our midst.”Kennedy published a report on Scotland’s failure to tackle trafficking last November – but this is the first time the voices of victims have been heard.The research found women are trafficked from across the globe to Scotland but mainly from Nigeria, China and Brazil and many come via England.But there is evidence that an increasing number are taken straight to Scotland.All of the victims had been vulnerable in their home countries.Many had lost family, were fleeing poverty, abuse or tribal violence and had turned to trusted community “aunties and uncles”.The women were mainly locked in flats and rooms, forced to have sex with up to 15 men a day, beaten and not allowed to use contraception.Their passports were taken and they were told their families would be killed if they tried to leave. Even when the women became pregnant they still had to have sex with punters.Women who were considered “new” were particularly popular in brothels.Some even talk of their children being held with them. One woman was locked in a room with her daughter who had to listen to her mother being raped.She said: “There was a room attached to my bedroom with a toilet and a shower. The trafficker said that I should look smart as it is money I have to make.“When men came, the trafficker would unlock the door and take my daughter away.

“While I was with these men I could hear my daughter crying in the other room. It was terrible. When the men were finished they would use the bathroom and then leave.”Women from Africa described their traffickers as powerful people within tribal communities who had connections with corrupt officials.The EHRC report said: “These women report being controlled using oaths or juju magic.”A 21-year-old described how she was forced to take alcohol and drugs so that she would be compliant.Money was paid to a madam who forced her to work seven days a week and beat her if she failed to keep customers happy.She said: “It was so painful, they were so rough, they didn’t care, they just wanted satisfaction.“I saw more than 10 men a day and because I was new, everyone wanted to have me. People waited for me.“When I finished with one they say go and have this liquid, wash up. My body was so painful.”The ten women who gave their testimonies had all come through the Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance (TARA), a Scotland-wide support service based in Glasgow.The interviewees were aged 21 to 33, nine of them from Africa, including Somalia, Nigeria, Gambia, Uganda and Kenya, and one from South America. The women had all fled their traffickers.A couple were helped to escape by regular customers but the men who intervened were the exception.When one woman told a customer she had been trafficked he became more brutal, while another punter only helped a woman to escape so that he could use her for himself. He abandoned her when she fell pregnant.One victim said she repeatedly told punters she was trafficked and needed help, yet only one assisted her.The man, a regular trusted by the trafficker, took the girl to his house, gave her a little money and dropped her at the Scottish Refugee Council.Another girl was freed when the police raided a brothel and one who had been captive for ten years was found unconscious by police and taken to hospital.Many victims were told they were under constant surveillance but one Nigerian girl took a chance when her female trafficker went to London.The victim said: “She said that I could not leave the house. She said that she had people watching me. All she would do was to call the house, if nobody answered then she would know.“All of this time I was looking out the window. I was thinking to myself who could be watching me? Who would be watching if I just took a step outside? If I left the house? I was so scared. I cannot even remember leaving.”The victim had been trafficked as a child to north-east England and was then moved to be sexually exploited in Glasgow.In one account, a victim took a chance when, on her way to the toilet, she noticed the flat door was open.“I was terrified the men had set a trap for me so I just went to the toilet.“When I came out I saw the door was still open. I was very scared but I took a chance and ran out.“I came to the landing and saw three doors. The first two I tried were shut fast. I thought about returning to the flat but the third door opened. I went through this door and there were stairs. I ran down many flights of stairs. I ran out of the flats.”The victim had been trafficked from Africa and was only prostituted in Scotland. She was trafficked by a trusted community member she turned to after witnessing the murder of her parents and grandparents by the police.When she ran out of the flat she stopped a couple of female passers-by – the first refused to help but the second took her by bus to the Scottish Refugee Council.

The worst drought in the region since the 1950s, At least 11 million people are touched by the disaster. In the Turkana district of northern Kenya, 385,000 children (among a total population of about 850,000) are suffering from acute malnutrition

Last week, the Archbishop Tutu sponsored a call for an arms embargo against Israel. Next November, Tutu will open in Cape Town the third session of the anti-Israeli Russell Tribunal, a standing organization that held two tribunals against Israel last year in Barcelona and London. During this event, Tutu will seek to determine whether Israel’s policies fit the international legal definition of the crime of “Apartheid.”

In Africa 30,000 young children have died since the start of the crisis. The world raised more than £600 million in aid. There is less than £350,000 in the African Union’s “special famine fund”. This is despite the Union’s 54 countries having a combined GDP of more than £1.2 trillion.

Kalonzo Musyoka, Kenya’s vice-president, Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s former president, and Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s ex-leader, were delegates attending workshops at the £650-a-ticket conference. A golf tournament was planned for the final day. Famine and drought was not on the agenda. Guess what was on the agenda?

The death penalty is being proposed in Uganda for Gays. This has little to do with an AIDS epidemic which for the most part effects heterosexuals in Africa just like it effects straights. This has to do with poor interpretation of the Torah and Gospels of Jesus. What is forbidden in Judeo-Christianity has no proportion to what response is to sin. Masturbation in the old testament led to just as critical a punishment as sodomy. Judging sin is up to g-d. The government has no right to intervene. Coveting another man’s wife is also a sin. These people that want to condemn Gay people to death are making an idol of the state.

There was a time in Kampala when gay men would meet for furtive one-night stands, even if they were prevented from forming lasting relationships in a country where homophobia is rife. “You would just have sex, then disappear. We were secretive out of fear,” said Peter, 39. At one point, things had begun changing for the better. “You could know where a guy lived and hung out; you could start to form relationships, something more permanent,” he said. “Then along comes this Bill that wants to kill us.” Homosexuality has always been illegal in Uganda, but draft legislation introduced by a born-again Christian parliamentarian proposing the death penalty for gay sex, under certain conditions, has upped the ante. Peter is again living in fear. Anti-gay sentiment is on the rise in many parts of Africa. In a bellwether case, a gay couple face trial for “unnatural practices” in Malawi; in Kenya, police arrested guests at what is claimed to have been a gay wedding last week — supposedly to protect them from an angry mob. “They are proposing a witch-hunt,” said Peter. “That Bill could put me to death, or in prison, in many ways. They want to legislate us out of existence.”

The draft law proposes the death penalty for having gay sex with anyone under 18, if infected with HIV/Aids, or with someone who is disabled — or for being what the Bill terms “a serial offender”. Gay sex between consenting adults would lead to a life sentence. It also calls for prison sentences for those “promoting homosexuality” — which could be interpreted to mean any human rights groups — and for anyone failing to report a homosexual act to the authorities. Pentecostal pastors across Uganda have exploited widespread moral conservatism to raise fear and anger against homosexuals. At the forefront is Martin Ssempa, the chairman of the inter-religious National Pastors Task Force against Homosexuality in Uganda. This week, 2,000 men, women and children joined his march in Jinja, a town 50 miles (80km) east of the capital. They waved banners, said prayers and quoted passages from the Bible. Other mass demonstrations are planned in coming weeks, although a “Million Man March” due to take place in the capital was cancelled when police refused to grant permission. At a press conference this week, Mr Ssempa displayed pictures of explicit gay porn downloaded from the internet. “You see what these homosexuals do!” declared the pastor, working himself into a frenzy of disgust at the slideshow that he had prepared. His performance was condemned by gay rights groups who accuse him of equating homosexuality with paedophilia and perverse sexual practices. When The Times met Mr Ssempa, he was wearing a “Ugandans against sodomy” badge and a broad smile. “Western civilisation has been taken over by homosexual activists,” he said. “This is a culture clash and a battle.” He described the Bill as “best practice” in an attempt to halt “predatory homosexuals”. International condemnation has been vocal. President Obama described the draft law as odious and some donor countries have threatened to withhold aid. President Museveni of Uganda seems increasingly embarrassed by the debate and it appears likely that the death penalty clause will be dropped. For gay Ugandans, however, the hatred that has been stirred up will not be easily forgotten.